The Panel Show thread

[K]

I don't know if there'll be enough content to sustain a whole thread, but EWB seems to love a celebrity comedy panel show.

Last night the first episode of Hypothetical aired on Dave. Hosts James Acaster and Josh Widdicombe guide a panel of comedians through a series of Hypothetical situations. 

It's amazing. Very, very funny. You can catch it on the UKTV Play app if you missed it.

It kind of feels like what Netflix were trying to do work The Fix, but where they missed, Hypothetical has smashed it 

Highly recommend.

[Rich]

5 hours ago, K said:

I don't know if there'll be enough content to sustain a whole thread, but EWB seems to love a celebrity comedy panel show.

Last night the first episode of Hypothetical aired on Dave. Hosts James Acaster and Josh Widdicombe guide a panel of comedians through a series of Hypothetical situations. 

It's amazing. Very, very funny. You can catch it on the UKTV Play app if you missed it.

It kind of feels like what Netflix were trying to do work The Fix, but where they missed, Hypothetical has smashed it 

Highly recommend.

James Acaster is legit my fave comedian at the minute, so I will go find this.

[HarshMillennium]

I'll check it out, I do love a panel show. 

And The Fix was fun but not the best... However it did introduce me to Katherine Ryan, who is awesome. 

[Josh]

We watched Hypothetical too. We’re big Acaster fans. We liked a lot of it, but I’m not certain I like the field piece segment. I feel like it will only improve with time though.

And I’ve continued with The Fix. It’s always decent, and sometimes great. The Aging and Gentrification episodes were a lot of fun.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

I am excited to check out Hypothetical. Love both James Acaster and Josh Widdicombe.

Been plowing through Richard Osman's House of Games recently. 

[tristy]

The Fix would have been better if it didn't feature fuckin' DL Hughley in every episode.

I wish America had panel shows like the UK does. As stated elsewhere, I love the Big Quiz shows, but I find I can't get into the ones where it doesn't have at least one person that I know going in (like Noel Fielding, Richard Ayoade, the occasional US comedian, etc). Which sucks, because they're so much fun, but, for me, it's a little like watching puroresu with the Japanese commentary - I don't know what the fuck is going on or what they're talking about. So having a familiar face or voice is nice.

I can't remember which Big Quiz show it was (maybe it was The Fix?), but one of the panelists called Jimmy Carr a robot because of his laugh and I was just glad someone else pointed out how weird it was.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

I said this in the other thread but I think the reason The Fix didn't totally work was that there was no way to really play along at home. 

[tristy]

I think The Fix was fine, personally. It just needed to having rotating panelists, not the same two with different team members every episode.

[K]

30 minutes ago, Ms. Canadian Destroyer said:

I said this in the other thread but I think the reason The Fix didn't totally work was that there was no way to really play along at home. 

This is something I didn't even realise I enjoyed about panel shows until you mentioned it, but you're totally right and I thought about that while watching this new Hypothetical show. While they were giving out the tasks I was thinking about what my answers would be.

[Josh]

As MCD pointed out, House of Games is a little bite-sized treasure.

[K]

Here are my predictions for Taskmaster Season 8:

David Baddiel
Lou Sanders
Mo Gilligan
John Robbins
Rose Matefeo

[Josh]

That’s one I need to check out. It’s tough to find here, but maybe it’s on YouTube by now.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Which panel show should I run in The Cube?

Although it's not the end of the year, I kind of want to do a Big Fat Quiz of the Year. 

[Josh]

Oh god, yes. I would to play in a pair and let it be a “comedy is as good as accuracy” thing.

Others shows could work too: WILTY and House of Games come to mind.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Taskmaster could totally work.

[Bobfoc]

My problem with panel shows is that there are a lot of good concepts, but I find that the guests aren't to my taste more often than not. Hypothetical sounds like an interesting idea, but I find Widdicombe and particularly Acaster more annoying than funny, so it's probably not for me.

Really, there are only a select few stand-up comedians who do anything for me right now. Reginald D Hunter is someone whose appearances on panel shows I relish, as is David Mitchell, although he's more of a comic actor/writer than a stand-up. By and large, I think it's the non-comedians who entertain me most, with Richard Osman and Victoria Coren-Mitchell always delivering. A small number of performers, particularly Russell Howard and Sarah Millican, I'll actively avoid.

[MDK]

8 minutes ago, Bobfoc said:

By and large, I think it's the non-comedians who entertain me most

Especially if it is someone who is a bit of a surprise. Corey Taylor from Slipknot was on QI once and he was pretty good.

[Josh]

See, I’m a bit the opposite. I adore Acaster. I always love Sarah Millican. Reginald is fine, but he’s not entirely my thing. But David Mitchell is always a money guest.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

My favourite thing about House of Games and Pointless is Richard commending me on getting an answer right at home. 

[Skummy]

I think the reason The Fix didn't work is because it was trying to adapt the whole panel show format to a US audience (and allow Jimmy Carr to break the US market), and so fell into this weird hinterland between a panel show and a kind of Daily Show series of monologues. As much as being a quiz/game is a conceit in most of these shows, even by those standards they didn't do enough to keep up the pretense.